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As most of you know Keith is an accomplished sommelier who knows more about wine, the wine industry, and grape varietals than most mortals could ever learn in a lifetime.\u00a0 He has a gift for identifying wines and describing them to perfection.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen this constantly over the years any time we\u2019d visit a winery or do a tasting somewhere.\u00a0 The vintners and the tasting room attendants would just melt when he \u2018got\u2019 their wine and what it was about.\u00a0 At restaurants too, the sommelier would suggest a wine and Keith would respond with query or comment and suddenly it\u2019s like they\u2019re old friends and best buddies, and they go off on a convoluted wine conversation, when all I want to do is order dinner. \u00a0By now he also knows everyone in the restaurant industry connected with wine in at least two or three cities.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d think this would be enough.\u00a0 I mean he can literally dine out on his credentials and the respect he garners.\u00a0 Just check out his instagram<\/a>. But no \u2013 he wanted more.\u00a0 He wanted to be an ADVANCED sommelier.\u00a0 Now, there\u2019s only about 2,500 of these rarified creatures in the entire world.\u00a0 It\u2019s a career stepping-stone for those in the wine world who want to be on the top of the pile in the best of the best restaurants around the world.\u00a0 If he were a youn\u2019un looking to advance his career, it\u2019d seem like a worthy goal.\u00a0 But as an old\u2019un looking at retiring in a few years, why would he consider such a grueling life-consuming multi-year process?<\/p>\n When he sat me down in 2019 and told me that he wanted to do this \u2013 or at least try \u2013 I was a bit wary.\u00a0 I mean I knew about the grueling study involved.\u00a0 Marriages had collapsed in the process.\u00a0 He said, \u201cIt\u2019s going to demand a lot from me, but also a lot from you as well.\u00a0 It\u2019s a major commitment in terms of time, money, and mental resources.<\/em> Are you up for it? Because I can\u2019t do it without you<\/em>.\u201d Well, when he put it like that, how could I say no?\u00a0 Plus knowing how well he knows his stuff, I thought it\u2019d be a total cakewalk for him.\u00a0 I\u2019d just have to read him a few flash card quizzes and maybe pour a bottle or two and have him guess what it was.\u00a0 He\u2019d be fine.\u00a0 I was na\u00efve.<\/p>\n First you have to be a certified sommelier. \u00a0No problem, he\u2019s been that for years. Then, you have to pass a \u2018qualifying\u2019 exam to determine if you\u2019re even fit to take the \u2018real\u2019 exam.\u00a0 He aced it at the first go. Then, you have to study harder than you ever did for any course in your life (and I\u2019m talking defending your PhD thesis, medical boards, etc) for the first component of a triple exam.\u00a0 This \u201ctheory\u201d portion is the stumbling block for most examinees.\u00a0 They use this to weed out people and narrow the candidate field (and charge them lots of money in the process).\u00a0 Studying for it involves whole data centers worth of wine minutae – down to the botanical genealogies of various grape varieties, arcane French wine-making rules from 1850, micro climates in South Africa, marketing boards for wine in Spain, the bureaucratic reasoning for the wine districts in Chile, and the paleo-geology of the Rhine river valley.\u00a0 It is absolutely absurd the amount of tangential crap you need to know to pass this test.\u00a0 So most people fail.\u00a0 Keith aced this the first time as well.<\/p>\n The second part is blind tasting.\u00a0 Keith is really, really good at this also.\u00a0 It\u2019s a little party trick he can perform.\u00a0 You give him a glass of wine and he tells you what it is, where it\u2019s from, what year, and what peasant girl stomped the grapes. It\u2019s pretty amazing. Still, at this rarified level you have six wines to identify (3 reds, 3 whites).\u00a0 Here he didn\u2019t ace it, but he squeaked out a pass.<\/p>\n The third portion is \u2018mock service.\u2019\u00a0 This is where four master sommeliers (only 290 of these in the world, btw) pretend to be very demanding, rude, and know-it-all restaurant customers with the goal of flustering you while you try to pour champagne the right way and answer all their questions correctly, and generally provide them with a world class wine experience.\u00a0 This is a piece of cake for most candidates.\u00a0 I mean, they do this every day in their fancy high-end restaurants. So if you get to this stage, you\u2019re pretty much a shoe-in.\u00a0 Not Keith.\u00a0 He choked. \u00a0As he tried to explain to me, \u201cI was like a deer caught in the headlights! I couldn\u2019t answer any their questions, my hands were shaking, and I couldn\u2019t think straight!\u201d <\/em>He failed. Utterly crushed, he flew home and was very subdued for days.\u00a0 I was dumb-founded.\u00a0 How could Keith, the biggest ham in the world, the former rock star used to performing for crowds, the life of the party, have stage fright?\u00a0 It didn\u2019t compute.<\/p>\n After he licked is wounds, he hesitantly asked me if I were game for him to try again?\u00a0 Part of me really wanted to say, \u201cno, you\u2019ve had your chance, let\u2019s move on<\/em>.\u201d \u00a0I mean, I could see how much it had taken out of him.\u00a0 Hell, it had taken a lot out me too.\u00a0 We\u2019d become social hermits for a year of endless flash card sessions, pouring six glasses of wine nearly nightly for him to test, and countless bottles of sparkling wine wasted so he could practice his champagne service, and then pretending to be a difficult to please restaurant patron (that last part was the easy one for me).\u00a0 Was I willing to do the whole process over again for another year?\u00a0 Of course!\u00a0 How could I not?<\/p>\n Unfortunately COVID intervened so the exams were postponed for 18 months.\u00a0 This didn\u2019t stop Keith from studying. Right while we were building a house, right during the busiest years of my real estate career.\u00a0 Study, study, study.\u00a0 In 2023 he sat for the exam again. This time however, his flight was cancelled and his luggage was lost. When he finally got to Phoenix he didn\u2019t have his sommelier suit, nor did he have his special solution or holders for his scalaric contact lenses.\u00a0 So, blind as a bat and in someone else\u2019s ill-fitting suit, he failed the service portion again (but just barely!).<\/p>\n Afterwards were the same tears of frustration, the same depression, and a disinclination to try again.\u00a0 He had come so close, yet he felt a failure.\u00a0 We couldn\u2019t tell any of our friends, but all the wine and restaurant industry people knew.\u00a0 They\u2019d been there supporting him at the various tasting groups and study sessions over the past years and he felt very much like he\u2019d let them all down.<\/p>\n Still after moping for a few months, he timidly asked me if he could try again. \u201cI promise, this will be the last time.\u00a0 I\u2019m too old and we\u2019re missing out on too much of life as it is. But this means a great deal to me.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 Again, how could I say no? Wine is his calling card.\u00a0 His talent in this regard sets him apart and gives him entr\u00e9e to places and people that he\u2019d never otherwise have.\u00a0 As he constantly reminds me, he doesn\u2019t have the fancy degrees that our friends have, and he works a blue collar job.\u00a0 So if he needed some distinction to feel he could hold his own, this achievement would provide that in spades.<\/p>\n So in 2024 we did it all over again.\u00a0 Constantly declining invitations from friends and staying home and studying became our routine.\u00a0 Endless bottles of blind tasting wines (24 \u2018on tap\u2019 at all times \u2013 12 reds and 12 whites).\u00a0 And mock restaurant scenarios with champagne service (thanks John K, Eric and Tiffanny, and Nick and Nessa for being such willing and dependably difficult restaurant customers).<\/p>\n So off to Phoenix he went for the third time this July.\u00a0 I anxiously awaited the phone call with the results.\u00a0 I had a huge sinking feeling in my stomach when I answered and heard him sobbing on the line again. This time however, it turned out to be tears of joy.\u00a0\u00a0It took him a moment to choke it out, but he\u2019d passed!<\/p>\n The huge relief of Keith\u2019s achievement took us both a week or two to process.\u00a0 I\u2019m so proud of him I could just pop!\u00a0 The stress of the past five years is now completely gone. Keith\u2019s got his mojo again and it\u2019s so gratifying to see.<\/p>\n I\u2019m hoping that we can get our (social) lives back and start enjoying our friends and family instead of being recluses. We\u2019ll see!\u00a0 But don’t worry, his lofty new title hasn\u2019t changed him.\u00a0 He\u2019s still the same ol\u2019 loveable Keith.\u00a0 He’s now just extra special.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As most of you know Keith is an accomplished sommelier who knows more about wine, the wine industry, and grape varietals than most mortals could ever learn in a lifetime.\u00a0 He has a gift for identifying wines and describing them to perfection.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen this constantly over the years any time we\u2019d visit a winery … Continue reading Advanced Sommelier<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7350","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zuschlag.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7350"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zuschlag.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zuschlag.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zuschlag.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zuschlag.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7350"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/zuschlag.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7369,"href":"https:\/\/zuschlag.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7350\/revisions\/7369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zuschlag.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}